This family owned and operated winery is currently overseen by winemaker Andy Pestoni, a 4th generation family member (he also founded and operates Jelly Jar Wines).
Wines from the 2016 vintage and newer are all labeled Pestoni Family. On January 1, 2017, they changed their name to Pestoni Family Winery – a welcome relief which better honors their heritage and certainly creates less confusion for the Pestoni Family and for the remaining two Rutherford named wineries (Rutherford Ranch and Rutherford Hill). The inaugural vintage of Rutherford Grove was from 1993. The modern day Pestoni Family opened Rutherford Grove Winery in 1994 with the purchase of the old Rutherford Vintners Winery, a winery that was built in 1977, founded by French born World War II veteran Bernard Skoda and his wife Evelyn – with the surrounding vineyard at that time planted to Riesling. The Pestoni’s also owned and operated the sizable Clover Flat Landfill off of the Silverado Trail about 4 miles south of Calistoga until also selling this site in early 2023 to Waste Connections, a company that operates approximately 100 domestic landfills. Over the years, Bob and his brother Marvin would expand the company. The Pestoni’s were one of the early local pioneers in recycling winery waste materials. John would ultimately support Bob financially in starting Upper Valley Disposal Service in 1963. At a hog auction Bob met John Petronave, a fellow hog farmer and garbage-hauler. At one point he had more than 600 hogs and built partnerships to transport unusable food and other organic waste materials. In the late 1950s after his father Henry passed away, Bob Pestoni (died late 2021) pivoted from the family business of diary and chickens to raising hogs. The Dominigos family sold this winery in 1979. We have seen an old label that Greg Pestoni forwarded to us, a California Zinfandel, one gallon with an appropriate image of the old wooden Bale Grist Mill on the label. Helena – operating from 1923 (bootlegging during the rest of the Prohibition years) until 1959 – after Prohibition naming it Old Mill Winery. Tragically, Henry’s brother Angelo (a World War Veteran as it was called in those days referring to World War I) was killed in an auto accident in 1934 in Pope Valley at only 37 years of age.Īnd in another piece of Napa winery history, Lena’s brothers (including Alfred Domingos) owned what is now Ehler’s Estate in St. Perhaps one of the early ‘vineyard management companies’ in a valley now dominated by vineyard management companies, they built a crew of employees and managed a number of vineyards in the northern part of the Napa Valley.
One of Albino and Mary’s four sons, Henry married into another Napa wine growing family, the Domingos (he married Lena Domingos). In 1923 the Pestoni family purchased property on nearby Whitehall Lane (today home to their estate Sauvignon Blanc vineyard). Helena Star, Albino sold his 25-acre Bell Canyon winery property, including 20 acres of bearing vines, the family home and several other buildings to L.O Girard and his brother-in-law E. See our notes and photographs at the bottom of this review for more details.Īccording to a June 16, 1922, article in the St. Remarkably the original stone winery still stands in Bell Canyon, near Bell Canyon Reservoir, on property owned by the city of St. Ten years later in 1892 Albino planted a vineyard and built a stone winery off of what is now Crystal Springs Road east of the town of St. His wife was Mary Madonna who arrived in Napa Valley in 1889 from Switzerland, with her parents. Pestoni Family Estate Winery, formerly Rutherford Grove, traces its Napa Valley roots back to Albino Pestoni, an immigrant who came to Napa Valley in 1883 from Monte Carasso in Switzerland (Ticino), just north of Lugano near the Italian border.
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